2016 seems to be the year of Dr Faustus. With Jamie Lloyd’s production over the summer and the RSC’s version which later transferred to the Barbican, I was excited to see Theatrical Niche’s reworking of Marlowe’s dark and gruesome tale. A brave re-working of a traditionally dark and sinful production.

"There are no second acts in American lives." So said F. Scott Fitzgerald. Written by Lillian Hellman, one of the 20th century's most successful female playwrights, The Autumn Garden touches on Fitzgerald's notion of midlife disillusionment – a show replete with a large cast, great female roles and a storyline that also alludes to many of the themes preoccupying the stage in post-War America.

There's something about watching a recreated 'wireless' performance performed live that is innately fun, transporting oneself to 70 years ago when radio broadcasters adopted cut-glass accents and Dick Barton: Special Agent was a firm favourite on the wireless. The Gin Chronicles: A Scottish Adventure is very much a parody of that phenomenon, replete with a 'knowingness' for a 21st century audience.

Going to a Peta Lily show isn't like other. Whether she knows you or not, she'll make a point of saying hello to everyone. This isn't an 'audience'. This is 'friends and family' – some who were beforehand, some who will be by the end.

Ever since the Brexit vote earlier this year, the rise of race-related hate crime in the UK has increased exponentially. In conjunction with this, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to get companies to declare how many non-British personnel they have working them... Afsaneh Gray's play Octopus, which is close to finishing its run at Theatre503 makes for unnerving viewing, as its satrical elements become more prescient by the day.

One of the last times I was at Camden People's Theatre was for E15, a show about vulnerable mothers in Newham who are being rehoused outside of the capital. This week the venue has been home to Strawberry Blonde Curls Theatre's show. With its use of verbatim theatre, its themes of the displacement of women and challenging the practices of the status quo, it certainly complements previous productions that highlight the plight of vulnerable women. Written by Rosie MacPherson and directed by Hannah Butterfield, Tanja tells the story of a woman, one of many who are 'housed' at Yarl's Wood detention centre in Befordshire for female asylum seekers.

Losing any one of your five primary senses is particularly devastating, but to lose one's voice (especially as an actor) is unimaginable. Written by Jo Harper, Can You Hear Me Running? is based on Louise Breckon Richards' own journals about the road to running the London Marathon – an unusual means to recovering her voice after a rare condition.

The compulsion to tell stories is as old as mankind itself. In fact it this, among other things, that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Written by Maud Dromgoole and directed by Tatty Hennessy, Acorn looks at how this primeval urge and how it's been sublimated in 21st century culture.

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Abigail Tarttelin is a Hackney-based author. Her third novel Dead Girls will be published by Mantle on 3 May. It follows the award-winning Golden Boy, which told the story of an intersex teenager called Max. Comedian, author and broadcaster Rosie Wilby spoke to her.

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